Jason & Larisa have an awesome opportunity ahead of them to become home owners! Please read their message to learn more.
Since we started our missions journey together in 2018 we have been renting an apartment this whole time. Owning a home again has always been a goal of ours, but sometimes seemed too far off to consider. Now, an opportunity has come up to make a move from renting a house to finally owning something here in Germany.
For the last 6 months, we have been looking for something small and just the right size for our family, with no prospects. We initiated the process on one place to discover it would need a complete and costly asbestos removal process. At any one time, there are about 10 properties for sale in our small town - and most of them need big renovations. Recently, we have felt led to switch to looking for something bigger, so that we have room to host others. This has led us to a house which has a main part the right size for our family, and a separate 2 bedroom apartment on top. This would give us the flexibility to have friends and family come to stay with us, and when the space isn’t needed for that, we plan to open a missionary housing option to serve the community for families coming by to visit their students at Black Forest Academy. This has been a long term need that we are excited to play a role in filling!
When I asked the director of Residence Life about their need for short term housing his response was:
“Definitely, it’s always a big need. I can think of 4 or 5 situations we consistently need housing for:
- When school is on break there are usually families who want to come here to be with their students
- If a student has a medical procedure that requires recovery time we have families come to town for that
- When we have a student who isn’t thriving, sometimes we ask families to come locate themselves in town to be nearby for a time. Sometimes the student needs to be with them [which makes the in town hotels difficult]
- When we have training events for our staff and we have speakers come to Kandern we frequently need to have some place for them to stay”
We estimate we will need about $110,000 for our down payment. This will go towards the large up front costs that Germany has for real estate - things like the notary fee and the up front 5.5% property tax transfer fee. The registration and the real estate agent fees are also high. We have some savings ready for it, but for this project to get off the ground, we need to raise about $60,000 to add to our savings.
Please consider joining with us to secure this opportunity. Please feel free to use the anonymous feature even if you tell us what you’re doing. If you prefer to send a check instead of using GoFundMe, we can do that just as easily. If you really need a gift to be tax deductible, we can receive some funds through our missions organization, but that method will come with bigger taxes for us to pay later. We are so grateful in advance for your prayers and generosity.
If this current house falls through, their plan is to continue to search for the right house God has for them so these funds will still be going to a home for the Radcliffes. Thank you for praying with them and supporting them in this effort!